Tired Muscles + Bad Sunburns = Vegetable Garden

I managed to get one 4x8 bed set up last week. I got half the sod dug up on Thursday, and the other half on Saturday. I also managed to get severely sunburned on Saturday. Anyway, all the bricks are in place, and the beginning 'lasagna' layers are in place. Interesting thing about the bricks - they aren't square. They also aren't 16" long, more like 15.5". So there's about a 6" space at one corner where they don't come together. I'll be looking for a half brick or maybe just cut one of the ones I have in half to fill in the space.
So, after I got the bricks set up around the perimeter, I smoothed out the soil in the bed, put down a layer of newspaper, straw, and grass clippings. The next layers will be compost, peat moss, and grass clippings until the bed is filled. I'm hoping to get the compost and peat moss sometime this week. In the meantime, I'll start working on the other 4x8 bed. And this time I'll make sure I've got plenty of sunscreen!

All the seedlings are growing quickly, so I'm going to start hardening them off this week. I know I should allow more time, but I've been rather busy lately. Better late than never, right?

Farewell For Now ~
Sarah

PS~ I haven't forgotten about pictures of my tomato experiment, I just haven't gotten them posted yet. I'm also going to be taking some pictures of the process of building the vegetable garden.

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

So, I was all set to start working at digging up the sod in the vegetable garden, and it rained today. Guess I looked at the wrong forecast. Yesterday was Mother's Day and I spent most of last week working on my Mom's gift. I now have one week to get everything dug up, the bricks set up, help Dad with a fence, and get everything planted. Oh, and buy the plants that we didn't start from seed.

My Anise Hyssop decided to come up! I'm so happy -- and it smells so wonderful! I've moved on to the next step of the tomato experiment, and all seems to be going well. I took some pictures and will try to post them somewhere, soon.

Farewell,
Sarah

Veggie Garden: Coming Soon!!

This will be the first vegetable garden I've had in 2 years. There will be 2 8x4 raised beds. My family started Square Foot Gardening many years ago, so we will continue doing that and we are going to try 'Lasagna Gardening'. I picked up the book at the library, and was very intrigued with the methods described. The last frost date for our area is May 18, but we've always planted on Memorial Day weekend. So, before then I have to clear the area chosen for the garden, set up the bricks for the beds, fill the beds with soil, and build a fence to keep out all the little critters. (So far we've seen rabbits, groundhogs, chipmunks, squirrels, and foxes).
Our soil will be in layers (this is where the lasagna gardening comes in). We will start with layers of newspaper. This will keep the weeds from coming through 8" of soil, and will eventually decompose. Then alternating layers of compost, grass clippings, straw, and anything else that sounds like it would be good for the plants.

My perennial garden is doing nicely this year. It has snowdrops, crocuses, hyacinths, daffodils, tulips, and 2 rose campion plants. I saved seeds from the rose campion last year, and have started 2 more plants. I'm not sure what else to put there. I need to find something that will bloom or continue to bloom after the tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths have faded.

In my flower garden, my Bee Balm is spreading - I pulled some up, and hopefully it won't take over too much space. My Yarrow is coming up, and so is the Valarien. So far the Anise Hyssop hasn't done anything, but I'm hoping it just needs a little more time to start growing.

Farewell -
Sarah

PS: The books mentioned are Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew http://www.squarefootgardening.com/
And Lasagna Gardening for Small Spaces by Patricia Lanza, Available at Amazon.com